We don’t want to drown in our beds.

  No.

  So the bund is solid?

  The bund is good.

  As first light came up, we’d file down and the last inside would secure the hatch. Then, after dinner and the clean-up, we’d retire to our separate quarters.

  Once we were abed, Sun would whisper: Have you checked the bund?

  There’s a bund?

  Apparently.

  Bugger me! Is it big?

  Huge.

  What’s it look like?

  You can’t miss it, she’d say. You could play chess on it. Lots of checks.

  We’d lie giggling until we broke out in the slimy sweats.

  We never argued, Sun and me. And there were no harsh words with my mother. Or from her. But by season’s end there were days and nights when not a word was spoken in the hab or in the connected cellars and empty cisterns. We laboured in silence. It was as if each of us carried a load we were no longer certain we could bear. It was all we could do to complete our tasks and keep out of one another’s way. The prospect of some outburst or explosion down there felt catastrophic.

  In those years, no southerner could imagine the feats of self-control that kept plainsfolk from running amok in summer. Given she wasn’t born to such hardship, Sun’s fortitude was impressive. That year, the heat broke in the middle of April. And when we came up into the withering twilight and felt the southerly breeze on our faces, she fell to her knees and wept.

  A week later, I was headed to the hamlet when I came upon a truck pulled up in the middle of the road. As I eased off the juice, the driver got down. A stranger. Not from the district.

  It’s not as if I hadn’t been anticipating deployment. But I’d convinced myself the Service would give me longer. They’d been watching me since my induction. They knew about my changed circumstances. And yet they called me up anyway.

  Within ten days I was gone.

  That was my first true long-haul job. First time north of the equator. And the first op I was on that involved children. There was tactical resistance.

  That’s all I want to say about it.

  Afterwards, in the debrief, before repat, a medic from Planning pulled me aside. She set me down in a corner, put a light in my eyes, took my blood pressure.

  Your misgivings, she said. They’re perfectly normal.

  I did my job, I said.

  Nobody’s suggesting anything to the contrary, she said. But I know what I’m seeing.

  I understand the policy.

  The children bear no responsibility. Let’s be very clear.

  I’m straight on that.

  But you must understand that all the alternatives have been tried previously.

  I know, I said. Live extraction. Redemption.

  At the time it was thought to be the morally correct course of action. But —

  Added logistical burden, I said. Higher losses.

  True, she said. But that’s not the half of it.

  Maybe I looked off in some way. I don’t know what she was seeing, what she was looking for, but she took a breath, stared at me a long moment, as if hesitating. Then she rolled out a stream of stuff I already knew.

  When these kids were spared, she said, the Service was essentially kidnapping them. Like it or not. Think about that. Having just eliminated their parents, we were seizing them by force. Traumatic for the kids. Obviously. But horrible for the operators as well. And lots of kids didn’t survive the initial extraction. Particularly if there was an arduous transit and repatriation. And even if they made it, the challenge of living as citizens in the outside world – well, it was often beyond them, beyond what could reasonably be expected of them. Think of it, comrade: all they’ve known is being indoors, locked away with plenty and luxury. And suddenly they’re out. Dragged off to be re-educated. We integrated them secretly into hamlets and cities all over the world. But there was no way to disguise their oddness. Their behaviour was utterly mystifying. They presented as defective, insane. Perverse. Diseased. Even the best of them sowed disquiet in their communities. The citizens who adopted them were bewildered by them. Even afraid. And the kids themselves? Well, a life out in the open – as an equal – it must have been terrifying. Most were depressed. Many destroyed themselves.

  Yes, I said as evenly as I could. I was told all this.

  The project post-Terror was to foster harmony. Calm. Civility. After the trauma of those bad years, the survival of every compound, hamlet and city has depended on it. So our policy of child redemption, honourable and painstaking as it was, became a threat to peace everywhere. It cost the lives of many good operators. And citizens. And overlord children. It was tragically misguided.

  Yes, I said. Mistakes were made. Lessons learnt.

  No child should bear responsibility for the crimes of her parents. Or her parents’ great-great-grandparents. And I know it will never feel that way in the moment. But it’s kinder to acquit them along with the object. It saves lives and spares suffering. The gravity of that choice is part of our shared burden.

  Understood.

  I’m sure you remember the words of the sagas in this regard.

  It is not your duty to finish the work. But neither are you free to neglect it.

  You’ll be repatriated separately.

  Can I ask why?

  You need some rest and reflection. You’ve earnt it. At the end of that period, you have the option to withdraw with an honourable discharge. No stigma attached. No disgrace in that.

  I’m fine, I said. I’m solid.

  Yes, she said. And right now, you may even believe that. But you need to rest and consider. We’ll see how solid you are.

  All I’ll say is this: I never liked killing the kids. But I always knew it was the decent thing to do.

  I dreamt I was still there. Stranded on the Steppe. The snow turning to slush where the fires had raged. Through the mask and balaclava, the smell of cooked flesh was inescapable. The sky was nacreous. In every direction, the land lay white and featureless. I looked for any sign of my unit. Found the dirty gutter of our tracks. Followed them until they petered out. Saw the scourings where anchors had secured the stat. And then I knew. They’d left me behind.

  I woke, shivering. The medic was there with a hypo. And as I sank back into sleep, I felt the gondola deck vibrating in my shoulder, my hip.

  Strange thing to be cold. Isn’t it? Stranger still to be dangerously cold. But there’s no panic in it, and after a while, no pain. I think it would be a good death. But I doubt that’ll be the way I go.

  Back home, the compound was in good shape. Winter conditions were fair. And our produce was healthy. The trailer-load of steel purlins I’d returned with was better than anything Sun and I had brought back or cached in our underground depots, but neither she nor my mother was particularly curious about its provenance. They were more focused on what this material could do for us. Having steel of this quality and length meant Sun and I could begin work on our own place, a second winterhouse. My mother seemed every bit as happy about this as Sun. Relations between the women were still cordial, but the care required to maintain amity was evident.

  Aside from making occasional suggestions about the design of our new place, my mother left the job of building it to us. We took this as a sign of trust, and of letting go, not as a failure to lend a hand.

  It took three weeks just to set the footings. The red earth was baked so hard it was like chipping stone. Our concrete was hand-mixed. Each hole required an entire day to fill. The stirrups were the size of trailer hitches. We got up at two every morning. Finished our chores by five and worked on the house until the heat sent us indoors.

  By the time the frame was up and fully secured, we were out of good steel. The Service had gauged it perfectly. We didn’t have to leave a half-built skeleton wallowing in the wind while we paused for the rest of the season or went off in search of fresh materials. We debated the pros and cons of waiting, but the prospect of a bit of independence was too hard to resist, and my mother didn’t object. If anything, she encouraged us to press on, told us she’d happily cover for us.

  It was only after we hit the road that it occurred to me she was as keen for some privacy as we were. There was nothing we could do about the summers. Unless Sun and I dug ourselves a new bunker, we’d all be forced to share the shelter hab indefinitely. But at least there’d be respite during the longer winter season. The promise of that was enough.

  It was late June when we took off down the peninsula, to the mainland. And the journey was like a glorious intermission. A break from routine and hard labour. Not to mention from what I’d seen and done at the other end of the world. The days on the road provided long stretches of companionable, restorative idleness, and we treasured it. It was a chance to be ourselves without being observed, indulged, even managed.

  But travelling the roads is not a solitary business. There were often strangers by the wayside. I avoided encounters wherever possible, and this baffled Sun. She was less guarded than me, more willing to engage with unfamiliar folks. She was curious about people, interested in their stories. Where they were from, where they were headed, and how they were faring. Occasionally – for her sake, and to make myself seem less of a fogey – I’d relent. But I remained reserved and alert.

  The truth is, there wasn’t much to fear on the road in those days. The industrial press-gangs were no longer a factor, and although there was always talk of bandits and chancers, most tales of brigandry were just folklore, the sorts of myths people used to make themselves – and each other – knuckle down and stay home. They were stories told to keep hamlets and compounds stable. But despite knowing all that, I was acutely vigilant on the road that season. If Sun noticed it, she never let on.

  Most travellers were just tradesfolk or prospectors, sojourners or immigrants, roaming in search of a bit of luck or at least a new situation. Some were fugitives or religious seekers, but they were easy enough to spot and evade. Sometimes, at water points or roadside camps, Sun would approach citizens in family groups and, from a distance, I’d watch her move among them. Strangers responded to her without hesitation. She took a special interest in their children. I never gave this fascination much thought.

  Before we headed north-east toward the caches we’d laid down in our previous expedition, we heard news of rain further inland. Nobody seemed to know exactly where it had fallen, or for how long. Some folks reported seeing lightning on the horizon. I wondered if it could be a training camp and not a storm at all. But it seemed too reckless for the Service to set a bivouac that close to public byways, so I discounted that notion.

  There were no signs of fire inland. Rain seemed plausible. I was keen to crack on and secure our materials as soon as practicable, but the prospect of mud gave me pause. I didn’t fancy getting bogged in the hinterland, so far from help. We could end up stranded out there for weeks.

  That night, camped at a prudent distance from a roadstead where the lamps of other travellers were still visible, a north-easterly breeze came up and with it came the rich, foetid smell of wet earth.

  That’s it, I said. We either go home and come back when it’s dried out, or we wait.

  Here?

  No, I said. Not here.

  We’ll be a week just getting home and back, said Sun.

  I know. It’s mad. Listen. There’s a place I know. South-east. It’s interesting. No one goes there. We’ll try that. Wait there a day or two, then cut back north and see how firm the ground is.

  Sounds like a plan.

  We were like children. On an adventure. Making our story up as we went. Hell, comrade. We were children. Think of that.

  It took half a day to reach the abandoned hamlet I had in mind. The country down there was dry, but the going was hard. There was no road or track except in tiny remnant stretches. It was easy to see the route had been deliberately obliterated. When we came down into the narrow valley, it took Sun only a few seconds to see what distinguished this place.

  Is that a graveyard?

  Yes.

  God. It’s twice the size of the town.

  Bigger, I said.

  What kind of settlement was this?

  I think it’s a plague town.

  How do you know?

  The gravestones. The stuff written there.

  Epitaphs.

  Huh, I said, savouring the sound of the unfamiliar word. Epitaphs.

  I drove her down to the ramshackle perimeter and we got out to wander among the rows of fallen tablets and memorials.

  I don’t understand, said Sun. Were they sent here to die, or did they all live here?

  Hard to tell, I answered.

  I wonder who buried the last of them.

  Nobody, I guess.

  Oh.

  Yeah.

  This reminds me, she said. Something I noticed but sort of didn’t notice. About the peninsula. I’ve never seen a cemetery.

  Ah. True.

  What happens, she asked. Do you send people south to be buried?

  No.

  You cremate them?

  No, I said.

  But if you don’t bury them —

  Well, we do. We bury them. But we do it differently.

  O-kay, she said carefully.

  It’s a plains thing. In the old days, before the Terror, growers fertilized the dirt with fish. Animal shit, too. But everything changed. When my father’s folks came down off the tops, they had to adapt. No fish or animals. But they needed fertilizer. I guess they figured, if you’re from the soil, and you live by the soil, you return to the soil.

  But these people here, she said gesturing at the graves. Haven’t they been returned to the earth?

  You see anything growing here?

  Not really.

  I think we only started keeping fowls in my father’s time. Once people came up from the south to trade. Before that, there was no other source of blood and bone.

  Dear God, she said, incredulous, shocked enough to laugh. You put your people through a chipper?

  Well, it’s not pretty. But up our way, soil’s everything. Right? You gotta have it. Make it, half the time. Mix dead birds with green waste. Chaff. Food scraps. Guano.

  Compost, you mean.

  Well, yeah. Dirt’s dirt. Dirt with compost is soil.

  Of course. But, my God.

  And people, I said self-consciously. They want to be useful. The most benefit for the most citizens.

  Well, she said ruefully. They did warn me. They told me you people were different.

  It stung a little, but there was just enough mordant amusement in her voice to save me from feeling too offended.

  It’s a cultural thing. Nobody would expect it of you. I mean, I’d drive your body south, if that’s what you wanted.

  Sun looked at me as if I were defective.

  You want to talk about my funeral?

  No.

  Well, let’s stop there, then.

  Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t —

  Listen, she said, interrupting me. How many times have you been here?

  Before this? Just once.

  Why would you come back?

  Why d’you think? I replied. Salvage.

  But there’s nothing standing. It’s all rust and rubbish.

  Not the hamlet, I said, wishing I’d thought of a different place to wait out the rain.

  She looked around at the graves.

  You’re joking.

  No.

  You took headstones.

  Slabs, mostly. Granite, marble. But yeah, a couple of the headstones.

  And that’s all.

  These folks. They were buried with all kinds of stuff. I figure I’m not robbing anyone. There’s no one here.

  You take these people’s belongings?

  Well, stuff they once had, yeah. It doesn’t belong to them anymore. Doesn’t belong to anybody. Remember I break up houses, sheds, machines, too. It’s salvage, Sun. All this material. It was all somebody’s once. And then it’s not. What d’you think our house will be made of?

  She was silent.

  Don’t we take dead people’s words? I said. Their stories? Skills? Ideas?

  Yes, yes, I get it, she said. There’s no life without dead people, no future that doesn’t rely on the past. I understand the concepts. It’s just the . . . brute reality. At this level.

  It’s not pretty.

  No.

  I don’t know what to say.

  It’s getting hot, she said. I’m going to lie down a while.

  Sure, I said, uneasy.

  Sun retreated to the vehicle, cranked out the awning and lay in the shade with her water flask. I lingered a while among the graves to give her space. I walked until I was sweated through and feeling light-headed. Eventually I had no choice but to return to the rig, fill a jug at the watermaker and sit in the shade beside her.

  They must have buried whole clans here, she said after a nerve-jangling pause.

  Maybe they just had big families.

  Whole names would have become extinct.

  Possibly. Probably.

  Doesn’t that seem like the saddest thing you could imagine – a family name, wiped out forever?

  Yes, I said, delivering the lie as evenly as I could manage.

  She was quiet for a while.

  What? I said.

  Sometimes I feel you’re hiding from me. But then other times I wish you wouldn’t show yourself.

  Okay, I said. That’s confusing.

  Show me how you do it, she said.

  Do what?

  Open the graves.

  Why? This was clearly a mistake. Why make it worse?

  Maybe it’s better to see it, she said. To know, not just imagine.

  Maybe tomorrow, I answered miserably. When it’s cooler.

  You want to camp down here, with all these graves?

  We don’t have to.

  We will, she said.

  Better if we don’t.

  We’ll camp here, she said.

  And we did.

  In the morning, after we’d eaten and it was light enough, I went to the tray of the rig, cracked open the kit locker and lifted out a pinchbar and hammer. I brandished them dolefully, hoping Sun had changed her mind, but she had not.